Ground Zero

by Kevin J. Anderson

  “Get a mask on—are you crazy?” he said. Dooley moved like a quarterback to the battered temporary desk, where he popped open the top right-hand drawer and snatched out a filter packet. With his meaty hands he tore off the plastic and tossed the mask to Mulder. “You FBI guys are supposed to be so smart—I’d think you could manage a few simple safety precautions.”

  Mulder sheepishly fastened the mask around his face with a long elastic band and breathed through the paper-smelling covering. He held his badge in his hand, flipping open his ID to display the photo and badge. “Bear Dooley, I presume? How did you know I was from the FBI?”

  The big man let out a loud laugh. “Are you kidding? A suit and a tie means you’re either with the DOE or the FBI—and with Dr. Gregory’s weird death I assumed you were FBI. We were told to expect you and to cooperate.”

  “Thanks,” Mulder said, coming in and sitting in a chair next to the man’s cluttered desk without being invited. “I’ve got only a few questions for you at the moment. I’ll try not to take too long. We’re still at the beginning of our investigation.”

  Dooley continued to unload his possessions from cardboard boxes, shoving folders into file-cabinet drawers and dumping pens and notepads into the long center drawer on his desk.

  “First off,” Mulder said, “can you tell me about the project you and Dr. Gregory were working on?”

  “Nope,” Bear Dooley said, turning back to pull out framed photos and some sheaves of what appeared to be weather satellite printouts, technical reports, water temperature maps of the oceans. “Can’t tell you about that. It’s a classified project.”

  “I see,” Mulder said. “Well, can you think of any unclassified way that any part of this project might have backfired and killed Dr. Gregory?”

  “Nope again,” Dooley said.

  Mulder got the impression that Bear Dooley was usually this gruff with newcomers—that he did not suffer fools gladly—but that right now the man was particularly distracted. Perhaps he was more than a little overwhelmed to have the entire project thrust upon him so suddenly. Mulder watched the engineer’s movements, listened to his abrupt answers. He tried to piece together a scenario where Dooley, wanting to become the new big shot, would arrange for the death of the real project head, thereby setting himself up to become the obvious successor….

  But it didn’t ring true. Dooley didn’t seem to be enjoying himself.

  “Maybe we’d better try a safer area. How long have you worked for Dr. Gregory?” Mulder asked.

  Dooley stopped and scratched his head. “Four or five years, I guess. Most of the time as a technician. Thought I was working hard then, but now he’s left me with a set of big shoes to fill.”

  “How long have you been his deputy project director?”

  Dooley answered that one more quickly. “Eleven months, ever since Miriel flaked out on us.”

  Outside in the hall a circular saw made a loud racket, followed by a sharp yelp. The clanging sound of metal and dropped pipes, crashed sheetrock and wood prompted a brief outburst of cursing and a scurry of frantic efforts to get the hazardous asbestos under control. It made Mulder think of a dentist drilling deep into a patient’s molar, and suddenly whispering “Oops!” under his breath. His stomach knotted.

  “What is all this stuff about the South Sea Islands?” he said, gesturing to the photos. “Aerial images and weather patterns.”

  Dooley shrugged and hesitated a moment as he concocted an explanation. “Maybe I’m planning a vacation—get away from it all, you know. Besides, that’s the Western Pacific, not the South Seas.”

  “Funny. Dr. Gregory had similar photos in his office.”

  “Could be we had the same travel agent,” Dooley answered.

  Mulder leaned forward. He found it difficult to conduct a serious interrogation while both of them were wearing these absurd filter masks. His breathing made his cheeks and lips hot. His voice was muffled and subdued. “Tell me about Bright Anvil.”

  “Never heard of it,” Dooley answered crisply.

  “Yes you have.”

  “You don’t have a need-to-know,” Dooley countered.

  “I have a security clearance,” Mulder said.

  “Your FBI clearances don’t mean a damn thing to me, Agent Mulder,” Dooley said. “I’ve signed papers. I’ve gone to my security briefing. I know the level of classification my work falls under. Unlike certain other assistants of Dr. Gregory, I take my oaths seriously.”

  Dooley pointed a blunt finger at Mulder. “You might not realize this, Mr. FBI—but you and I are on the same side. I’m fighting for this country, doing what our government deems necessary. If you want a blabbermouth, why don’t you go see Miriel Bremen at her Stop Nuclear Madness! headquarters? You can find the address in any one of the thousand or so leaflets they left scattered in the ditches and along the fence yesterday. Go ask her your questions. Then arrest her for divulging national security information.

  “In fact, why don’t you ask her a lot of questions. She was around when Emil Gregory died, and she had plenty of motive to mess up our project.”

  Mulder looked sharply at him. “Tell me more.”

  Bear Dooley’s color deepened as his long-standing resentment boiled to the surface. “She and her protesters were here the whole time. They threatened to stop at nothing—nothing, if you take the clear implications of that word—to sabotage our work. Miriel would know how to do it, since she worked here long enough. Maybe she’s the one who planted something in Gregory’s office. Maybe she’s behind it all.”

  “We’ll check it out,” Mulder said.

  Dooley set a box full of office supplies down heavily on the desk. Pens and pencils and scissors clattered next to his stapler and tape dispenser.

  “Now I’ve got a lot of work to do, Agent Mulder. I was already up to my nose in responsibilities, and now it’s gotten even worse. Add to that the fact that I’ve been pulled out of my comfortable offices and stuck in this godawful hole trying to make do, working on a project in a barracks building where I can’t even pull out any of my classified papers.”

  Mulder thought of something else as he stepped to the door. “I noticed in Dr. Gregory’s office that some of his reports and papers had been taken away from the death scene. Disturbing the evidence at a crime scene is a serious offense. You didn’t have anything to do with that, did you?”

  Bear Dooley emptied the last items out of a cardboard box, then upended it on the floor and took great pleasure in stomping the cardboard flat. “All of our project reports are controlled documents, Agent Mulder—numbered and assigned to a specific user. Some of Dr. Gregory’s reports were one-of-a-kind. Maybe it was something we needed for our work. Our project takes precedence.”

  “Over a murder investigation? Who told you that?”

  “Ask the Department of Energy. They might not tell you much about the project, but they will tell you that much.”

  “You sound pretty confident,” Mulder said.

  “As my old girlfriend used to say, self-confidence isn’t one of my weak points,” Dooley said.

  Mulder pressed the issue. “Could I get a list of the documents that you took from Dr. Gregory’s office?”

  “No,” Dooley answered. “The titles are classified.”

  Mulder kept his cool. He reached into his pocket and removed one of his cards. “This is the main office of the Bureau. You can reach me through the federal telephone system here on your lab phone, or call me on my cellular if you think of anything else you can tell me.”

  “Sure.” Dooley took the card and offhandedly opened up the center desk drawer already cluttered with pens and rulers, push pins, paper clips, and other debris. He tossed the card inside, where he would probably never be able to find it again, even if he wanted to.

  Mulder didn’t get the impression Bear Dooley would want to.

  “Thank you for your time, Dr. Dooley,” he said.

  “That’s Mister Dooley,” the engineer said,
then lowered his voice. “Never finished my Ph.D. Been too busy working to worry about things like that.”

  “I’ll let you get back to your project then,” Mulder said, and slipped out into the hall, where the construction workers continued to rip out sheets of asbestos-containing material behind thin curtains of plastic.

  SEVEN

  Gregory Residence, Pleasanton, California

  Wednesday, 10:28 A.M.

  The key fit the lock, but Mulder knocked loudly anyway, pushing the door open a crack before poking his head inside. “Ding, dong—Avon calling,” he said.

  Emil Gregory’s home greeted him with only a shadowy silence.

  Beside him, Scully pursed her lips. “There shouldn’t be anyone here, Mulder. Dr. Gregory lived alone.” She opened the folder that she had been holding against her dark blue jacket. “It says in this report that his wife died six years ago. Leukemia.”

  Mulder shook his head, frowning. He thought of the terminal cancer Scully had found while doing the autopsy on Gregory’s body the previous afternoon. “Doesn’t anyone die peacefully in their sleep of old age anymore?”

  The two of them hesitated outside the cool, dusty house that sat alone at the end of a cul-de-sac. The architecture of Gregory’s home seemed out of place compared to the neighboring houses, its rounded corners and curving arches reminiscent of a Southwestern adobe mansion. Colorful enameled tiles lined the front doorway, and grapevines coiled around an arbor that shaded the porch area.

  After waiting a few extra seconds, Mulder pushed the door all the way open. In the foyer, they walked across large, cool terra-cotta tiles and took two steps down to the main living level.

  Though Gregory had died only a day and a half before, the place already had an abandoned feel to it, like a haunted house. “Amazing how fast that oppressive atmosphere can settle in,” Mulder commented.

  “It’s obvious he was a bachelor,” Scully said.

  Mulder looked around and saw no particular untidiness to the house. In fact, it reminded him of the condition of his own apartment much of the time. He wondered if she was somehow ribbing him.

  The main room had all the usual furniture—sofa, love seat, a television, a stereo set—but it didn’t look as if it had been used terribly often. On the coffee table in front of the sofa a pile of old magazines lay partially buried under a dozen technical reports bearing the logo of the Teller Nuclear Research Facility and several more from the Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories.

  The pale tan walls had a smooth and buttery appearance, like soft clay. Alcoves molded around a fireplace displayed an assortment of small knick-knacks. Painted Anasazi pots sat on small shelves; bright spirit-catchers decorated the walls. A wreath of dried red chili peppers hung centered over the mantel.

  The entire house had the authentic Santa Fe flavor, but Mulder got the impression these decorations must have been artfully arranged by Dr. Gregory’s long-dead wife, and the old scientist had not had the stamina or the incentive to redecorate the main part of the house in his own style.

  “After he lost his wife, Dr. Gregory didn’t seem to have any interests aside from his work,” Scully said, flipping through the dossier again. “According to this record, he took a two-month leave of absence to arrange for the funeral and to get his mind back on things—but apparently he didn’t know what to do with himself. Since his return to work at the Teller Nuclear Research Facility, his employee file is stuffed with commendations. It seems he threw himself into his research with complete abandon. It was his entire life.”

  “Any record there of what he was really working on?” Mulder asked.

  “Because his project was highly classified, it doesn’t specify.”

  “Same old story,” Mulder said.

  In the kitchen Scully found several bottles of prescription pain killers on the countertop. She shook them and studied the labels. Some of the bottles were half empty.

  “He was taking some pretty heavy medication…analgesics and narcotics,” she said. “The pain from his cancer must have been incredible. I haven’t gotten his personal medical record unsealed yet, but Dr. Gregory undoubtedly knew he only had a few months to live.”

  “Yet he still went to work every day,” Mulder said. “Now that’s dedication.”

  He wandered around in the empty house, not sure what he was looking for. He crossed the living room and stepped down a side hallway that led to the back bedrooms and study. Along these walls, in the private part of Gregory’s home, was a completely different style of decoration.

  Framed photos adorned the wall in a haphazard arrangement that implied a man with a hammer and a nail, but without the patience or desire to use a yardstick and level. It looked as if the photos had been mounted as Dr. Gregory collected them over the years, one at a time, and placed wherever he found room.

  Each image was different, yet with one striking similarity: the repetitive fury of huge atomic mushroom clouds, nuclear blasts, one after another—some more powerful than others. Mulder spotted a desert backdrop behind some of the blasts, while many others showed the ocean and Navy destroyers. Teams of scientists, identifiable in their cotton shirts and black-rimmed glasses, smiled for the camera beside military officers and other men in uniforms.

  “And to think some people collect paintings of Elvis on black velvet,” Mulder said, studying the mushroom clouds.

  Scully came up beside him. “I recognize some of those pictures,” she said. “Classic photos. Those were the Marshall Islands hydrogen bomb detonations of the mid-fifties. These others…I think they were aboveground blasts at the Nevada Test Site, a few shots from Project Plowshare.” She stared at the photos. Mulder looked at her, surprised by the disturbed expression on her face.

  “Something wrong?”

  She shook her head, then tucked a strand of light auburn hair behind her ear. “No…no, it’s not that. I was just remembering that, according to his file, Dr. Gregory had worked on nuclear weapons since the days of the Manhattan Project. He was present at the Trinity Test, then worked at Los Alamos. He took part in many of the H-bomb detonations in the fifties.”

  Mulder stared at what appeared to be the largest mushroom cloud, an enormous eruption of water and fire and smoke out in the ocean. It looked as if an entire small island had been vaporized. Handwritten on the bottom border of the glossy were the words “Castle Bravo.”

  “Must have been quite something to see,” he said.

  Scully gave him a quick surprised look. “Not something I’d ever want to see,” she said.

  He quickly ran a hand through his mussed hair. “Rhetorically speaking, I meant.” He read the strange names scrawled on each of the photos. They had been written with different pens but obviously by the same hand. Some of them had faded over the years; others had retained their color and darkness better.

  “Sawtooth”

  “Mike”

  “Bikini Baker”

  “Greenhouse”

  “Ivy”

  “Sandstone X-ray”

  “What’s this, some kind of code?” Mulder said.

  Scully shook her head. “No. Those were the names of the test shots, different bomb designs. Each one was given a kind of nonsense name. The tests themselves weren’t a particular secret, just the details of the device, time, anticipated yield, and core assembly. One whole series of underground blasts out at Nevada was named after California ghost towns. Another series used the names of various cheeses.”

  “What a bunch of funny guys.”

  Mulder left the photo gallery behind and stepped into the large, disorganized office where Gregory had done his work at home. Despite the clutter of papers, notes, and books scattered in various piles around the room, he suspected that Dr. Gregory could have found any item at a moment’s notice. A den or an office in the home was a man’s private sanctum, and, despite the random appearance of all the paraphernalia, over the years the old scientist must have gradually arranged it exactly the way he
wanted.

  Now, seeing unfinished ideas jotted down on yellow legal pads and in bound lab notebooks, Mulder experienced the poignant sense of a life suddenly stopped. It was as if an amateur filmmaker had placed his videocamera on PAUSE while Dr. Emil Gregory did an EXIT STAGE LEFT, leaving all the props in place and untouched.

  Mulder carefully looked at the notes, papers, technical reports. He found a stack of colorful travel brochures for various small Pacific islands. Some were flashy and produced professionally while others appeared to be crudely made by people who didn’t exactly know what they were doing.

  “You don’t expect to find anything here, do you?” said Scully. “It’s unlikely that Dr. Gregory ever took any classified work home.”

  “Probably not,” Mulder said. “But he was brought up during the Manhattan Project days. Security was a little more lax than it is now, since everyone was working on the same team against the same bad guys.”

  “And here we are still building bombs to fight against the bad guys—yet we’re not at all certain who the bad guys are anymore,” Scully said quickly, almost as if by reflex.

  Mulder looked sidelong at her, raising his eyebrows. “Was that an editorial comment, Agent Scully?”

  She didn’t answer. Instead she picked up a framed certificate that had been taken off the wall and set atop one of the low bookshelves. Mulder could still see the naked nail on the wall where it had hung.

  “I wonder why he took this one down,” she said, tilting it so he could see.

  The certificate was a competently made printout from a laser printer with a logo designed with a low-end computer art program—just a joke, but someone had obviously spent a lot of time on it. The symbol in the center of the parchment was a stylized bell with a clapper dangling beneath its shell. Superimposed on top was the slashed circle of the universal “No” symbol. The words underneath read, “This prestigious NO-BELL prize awarded to Dr. Emil Gregory by the Bright Anvil Project staff.”